Mirrors with the Resurgam Choir

Poems by W.B.Yeats, Lewis Carroll and Stevie Smith with the music of Kenny Wheeler

As part of a tour of Ireland, these concerts in The Studio of the LEXICON in Dún Laoghaire are jointly presented by the Improvised Music Company and Jazz on the Terrace.

Kenny Wheeler’s wonderful musical settings performed by the new Irish jazz voice Lauren Kinsella, as part of Lauren Kinsella's Irish Jazz Sextet, and accompanied each night by a different choir.

This concert does not quite conform to a traditional form of touring, it is one where there has to be a high degree of engagement between a group of professional jazz musicians and two dedicated choirs. For the Tuesday performance the Kilkenny College Chamber Choir will be accompanying, and for the Friday performance, The Resurgam Choir. Both choirs will be conducted by the extraordinary jazz choirmaster Pete Churchill. The two choirs on this tour will never have rehearsed and performed with jazz musicians or a jazz choir director like Pete Churchill and will each provide a distinct interpretation of 'Mirrors'.

Kenny Wheeler (1930-2014) was a virtuoso trumpet and flugelhorn player. Born in Canada, he spent most of his life in England. He was a composer of rare distinction in the modern jazz era. Pieces he composed had such beautiful melodic content that people often wrote lyrics to accompany them.

In “Mirrors” he wrote music for poems by authors that he admired, for him a new exercise. The music was recorded with Wheeler, collaborator Norma Winstone and Pete Churchill’s London Vocal Project choir as part of a jazz sextet in 2012. It was definitely choral music worthy of touring and choir director, pianist and jazz singer, Pete Churchill is stepping up to the plate, conducting each of the choirs on tour. He is very much in demand as a choral director and is known for running the jazz choir at Trinity College of Music in London, collaborating with Norma Winstone and Tina May and conducting the Kenny Wheeler Big Band. His main project now is his own choir “The London Vocal Project” which recorded the original “Mirrors”.

The exuberant Kilkenny College Chamber Choir have joined in this project with the encouragement of their well known and highly regarded director David Milne.

The Resurgam Choir, normally conducted by Mark Duley, is best known for its work with the Irish Baroque Orchestra and will be performing on the Friday.

The Lauren Kinsella Jazz Sextet features the new Irish jazz voice, Lauren Kinsella. She is passionate about uniting the voice within instrumental sound and blending extended vocal technique and poetry in both improvised and composed settings – which, for her, are closely linked.She’ll be performing with Matt Robinson on piano, Matt Halpin on saxophone, Bill Blackmore on flugelhorn, Dave Redmond on doublebass and Kevin Brady on drums.

Don't miss these unique jazz and choral performances in the new Lexicon building in Dun Laoghaire.

This tour is funded by The Arts Council’s Touring and Dissemination of Work Scheme.